1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to optical sorting machines for agricultural products.
2. Description of the Prior Art
U.S. Pat. No. 4,454,029, of which applicant is inventor, relates to a bichromatic sorter for agricultural products. These sorters have been primarily used to detect unacceptable agricultural products based on color of the product, such as coffee beans, peanuts and the like. There were certain types of relatively smaller, usually granular, agricultural products, such as rice grains which required only a monochromatic or gray level sort to reject unacceptable dark products. U.S. Pat. No. 3,738,484 related to a sorter for monochromatic sorting of this type. However, it was felt that the grains had to be maintained in serial flowing streams of spaced individual grains for accurate sorting. This placed an effective limit on the volume of grains which a sorter could process in a particular time interval. For increased productivity, additional sorters were required.